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Everything posted by Dangerbutton

I've got a player who is entirely new to the 40k universe, but she's interested in playing as an Inquisitor (through some house rules we're using).
Any suggestions on where to point her to learn more about inquisitors? I know that there are a lot of great novels about inquisitors, but I'm looking for just some simple wiki pages and such that would give her a good overview, without being too much.
Thanks!

With FFG dropping support of Rogue Trader, and all other Warhammer IPs, is there another place that the community has migrated to? There's till these archived message boards, but it would be nice to have a place better dedicated to Rogue Trader... Anybody know for sure?

I'm still working on this, and will post more details when I've made more progress. It's definitely turning into a bigger project, but I think it will be worth it.
I've also made a slight adjustment to hit locations, modeling them after the rules from The Riddle of Steel. We're keeping the same zones (Arm, Body, Head, Legs), but rather than randomly determining where you hit, you decide which zone you're going for, and how you're attacking. For instance, if you want to attack the Body with a power sword, there are multiple ways to do it — an overhand swing, a horizontal swing, or maybe an upward swing. Each of those locations will most likely hit the chest, but could the defender can cause the attack to "wander" into a different, less fatal zone.
I'm also making some major changes to Wounds/Critical Damage, and Psychic Powers.

I'm working on adapting Rogue Trader to be able to use the Star Wars Dice system. It's looking to be quite the undertaking, as I've got to modify a good chunk of the talents, but I think it's going to work out great.
I'll share my work in this thread, as I get further along, but at this point I'd like to get your feedback on just one aspect of it —
When should I adjust the difficulty of a roll, versus just adding boost or setback dice.
When something grants a bonus, I'm adding 1 Boost dice per +10 bonus.
When something incurs a penalty, I'm adding 1 Setback dice per -10 penalty.
I'm only changing the difficulty of the dice roll when the test is given a specific difficulty, such as "Ordinary (+10)".
That's working, for the most part, but I'm left wondering when I should upgrade dice, rather than adding boost, setback, or difficulty.
Any suggestions or thoughts on that? Thanks!

I'm running Lure of the Expanse with my group, and I've run into an issue with the Achievement Points.
The whole campaign calls for 3000 points to succeed, with a bonus +1 PF per 100 points beyond 3000. Just going off of the possible point values written into the campaign, these numbers are very reasonable.
But then we add the bonuses from various Ship Components. My group would be getting a Theme bonus on almost every objective in the campaign, often amounting to much higher than the objective is even worth! In the Heathen Trail portion of the campaign, they're capable of getting bonus Achievement Points in excess of 2000. It's a little unbalanced.
Any ideas how to solve this problem? I'm not just going to hand over the bonus points for free — they'll have to come up with a legitimate way to utilize the component that's going to give them the bonus — but I've learned to never underestimate the players' ability to do what it takes to maximize their rewards. Maybe I should alter the values in the campaign? Or reduce the bonus from their components?
Has anyone else dealt with this issue?
NOTE: This is the first time I'm actually trying to utilize the Achievement Point system in Rogue Trader. In all previous campaigns, I tossed out that part of the system, usually due to lack of planning. I really want this to work, though.

I'm going to be starting a Rogue Trader campaign, soon, with a group that is entirely unfamiliar with the 40k Universe. Can anyone recommend any good 40k lore guides available on youtube?
EDIT: The majority of lore guides I've found on youtube go into great detail on the Primarchs and the Space Marines. While that's an important part of the universe, it's less relevant to the Rogue Trader experience. I'm looking for guides that give equal attention to the other factions within the Imperium, as well as Xenos and Chaos.

This is definitely a possibility, as the point of this house rule is to increase the risk involved in combat.
If the players' response would be to just send in the troops rather than dealing with combat personally, then such a house rule is not for them.
Keep in mind, however, that this will make the enemies more vulnerable, as well. If the average enemy goes down in one or two hits, that means they'll have less time to cause hurt to the players.
My first introduction to roleplaying games was The Riddle of Steel, which was designed for realistic combat, and was a whole lot more deadly that the Rogue Trader system. We'd have some players that had to roll a new character after just about every other game. That has strongly influenced my tastes in RPGs, so I'm always looking for a more deadly game.

One of my favorite aspects of Rogue Trader is Critical Damage system.It adds a lot of flavor to combat, and it further immerses you in the brutality of the Warhammer universe.
However, I hate the system for Wounds.
Wounds are really just a measurement of how much more damage needs to be dealt before interesting things happen. Why not have interesting things happen the whole time? Why can't critical damage come into play from the beginning?
In an upcoming campaign, I'm going to try some house rules to change wounds and critical damage.
- 1) There are no more Wounds. Players don't have wounds, NPCs don't have wounds.
- 2) The Critical Damage tables are expanded, ranging from 1-20 instead of 1-10. Each result that is currently on the table will count for two points of critical damage (for example, the first result would be for 1-2 damage, the next result would be 3-4 damage, and so on). At some future point, however, I would like to write up results for all 20 points of critical damage.
- 3) Critical Damage is no longer cumulative — at least not in the way that it was. The first time a character takes damage, you'll apply it to the critical damage table, as normal. The second time they take damage, count it as normal, but then increase the result by one. The third time you increase it by two, then three, then four, and so on. This means that each attack that hits you isn't necessarily going to be worse than the previous attack, but several smaller attacks will still be able to wear down and eventually kill a character.
Let's look at an example:
Tristan Orthesian, a Rank 1 Rogue Trader, gets shot by a bolt gun. The damage rolled is 12. His Enforcer Light Carapace, after being reduced by the Bolt Gun's Pen 4, stops 2 of the damage, and his Toughness Bonus stops 3 of the damage. In the end, that's still 7 damage. Via the official rules, that wouldn't even get through the 8 Wounds that he has; he'd be unaffected by the shot. With these house rules, though, it would immediately deal critical damage. 7 points of damage would get him the fourth result on the damage table (the result for 7-8). In this case, he was shot in the arm. He suffers fatigue and shock, and the arm is rendered useless until he receives medical attention. Much more impact than the regular rules.
Tristan gets attacked a second time, this time from a Chainsword dealing 11 damage. After armor and toughness are applied, he's taking only 4 damage. That would cause him to suffer the second result on the damage table, had this been the first time he was wounded in that battle. As he's already suffered critical damage once, we increase the result by one, so he instead suffers the third result on the damage table. It wasn't as bad as the first damage he took, but the fact that he'd already taken damage made it worse than it would have been, otherwise.
---
There will be some features and abilities that need adjusting to fit this, such as the Sound Constitution talent. The removal of wounds from the equation makes that talent pointless. We could change it to something else, though. Perhaps you can use your Sound Constitution talent to lower the damage result by one. You can use it a number of times per encounter equal to how many times you've taken the talent. Something like that. There are also some things that affect starting Wounds. To compensate for that, maybe we just give the Sound Constitution talent, as modified by these house rules, to those characters who would have higher starting Wounds.
What do you all think of this set of rules? Any glaring flaws? Any improvements that could be made?
I know this isn't everyone's preferred style of play. Some people like the safety net that a pool of hit points provides. Some people like to have "boss fight" enemies that take a prolonged combat to gradually bring them down.
I don't like that. I like people to die. Quick and bloody.

Back when I first started playing Fireborn, in 2005, I remember having some handy reference cards, with all of the different moves you can use in a physical action. It was very helpful for learning combat, and speeding it up. However, I can't seem to find the ones I printed out, and can't find the digital files for them online. I don't know if they were fan-made, or official FFG cards.
Anybody know where to find them?

Here's my plan on how to handle the Colony Characteristics:
Complacency
While Complacency is greater than Size, the crew benefits from +10 Morale.
When Complacency is reduced to 0, Order and Productivity decrease by 1d5.
Order:
While Order is greater than size, all Command Tests to the crew benefit from a +10 Bonus. Also, its Productivity increases by 1.
When Order is reduced to 0, the crew suffers -30 to Morale.
Productivity:
While Productivity is greater than size, all Ship Actions benefit from a +10 Bonus.
When Productivity is reduced to 0, the Ship counts as being Crippled.
Piety:
While Piety is greater than Size, Order and Complacency are increased by 1.
When Piety is reduced to 0, Order and Complacency are reduced by 1d5. Until the problem is fixed, rolls on the Warp Travel Encounters happen once for every 3 days of warp travel, rather than 5 (due to less protection from the God-Emperor . . . sinners.)
Note that none of these affect Profit Factor. I've decided not to have the ship affect profit factor at all. I'll leave that to regular Colonies, and all of the cool stuff the players do.
Anyhow, feel free to offer suggestions or other ideas on how to work things.

You all raise some valid points about a the trouble a ship-as-a-colony would have in sustaining itself or generating a profit. I don't really intend to have my players view it as a source of profit. Their endeavors will still be their main source of profit.
I'm mostly interested in my players recognizing that the ship has a culture of its own, being crewed by people who view it as a home, rather than a job. I'll follow the rules for Colony stats (Complacency, Order, etc), as well as have them experience Calamitous or Fortunate events, just like a colony.

@Nameless2all - Yeah, I understand that concern. I don't want to force anything on my players that they aren't interested in doing. However, having already run the idea past them, they're all for it!
@Kshatriya - That's a big part of why I wanted to treat the ship as a Colony, especially since our ship has the Clan-kin quarters. I plan on coming up with several different clans, and having representatives that the players will interact with.

That's a good point, there. The Turbulent-Class Frigate that they chose does not have a lot of extra space for things like that. Perhaps that's something I can work into the game, though. The players will find themselves needing to somehow acquire some sort of a transport with a lot of space for a thing like this...

I like the idea of emphasizing those components not necessary for combat. They have an Arboretum, but none of the mining facilities. Also, the ship is only a Frigate, so space is limited.
One thought I'd had is to have the colony increase in size if the players acquire an additional ship. Count all ships controlled by the players as a part of the same Colony. . .
Is there any place that shows how Size equates to actual population? I'm not needing a hard number, just a rough estimate, so I can know what size to start the Colony as.The Turbulent-Class Frigate that they have is at roughly 25,000 members of the crew.Well, -8% due to the death cult on deck 13 . . . Anyhow I was thinking Size 2 or 3, Think that's even in the ballpark?

I'll be starting up a new campaign in the coming weeks, for which the players have already made their starship. In so doing, they chose the Clan-kin quarters, indicating that it has less of a crew, and more of a group of people who viewed the ship as their home. With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to treat the ship as a Colony, according to the rules in Stars of Inequity.
There would be some differences, of course. The Size of the colony wouldn't likely increase, because, well, the ship is already maxed out. However, it could go down, . .
While I would still allow an increase or decrease in profit factor from this colony, that will not be the point of having it be a colony. I want it to be a way to get the players more involved with their crew, and viewing them more as people that they are responsible for, than as stats that help them in a space battle.
What do you think? Any suggestions?

Thank you very much for the input.
At least in the first session, my PC's will be facing some of Karrad Vall's goons. I think I'll keep most of them relatively easy, but throw in some good gear on a few of them. In addition, I might be pitting them against a Blade-Thing or two.
I generally try to have the challenges the PC's must overcome be more than just a hard fight. I like more roleplaying and less dice-rolling. However, there are a few in my group that seem a little annoyed when their very combat-oriented character doesn't get his chance to shine, so I'm trying to establish a good fight.

I'll be starting a game soon in which the players are beginning at Rank 4.
I'm having a hard time figuring out just how powerful the enemies should be. Any examples from the books of appropriate enemies?

Having just found out that some of my friends are in a Dark Heresy group, I've been toying with the idea of running a sort of hybrid game.
I'd collaborate with the GM for their DH games to create a campaign that both groups will play, simply from their own perspective. We'd plan between each session according to what the other group has done. Our Explorers will be affected by the actions of their Acolytes, and vice versa. At times, players from one group may temporarily go with the other, and maybe at some point we'll attempt a joint game (but that might be a lot of people).
Anyhow, any suggestions? Think it will work?

My group is taking a temporary break from RT while we try out some other games, but we want to pick back up playing again in a few months. When we do, I want to have an awesome adventure planned. In considering what to do, I've decided I'd like to see about jumping ahead around 100 years. I decided I'd like to do this for a few reasons.
-Some of the players aren't going to be there anymore, including our rogue trader, and another one or two players will be joining. This would allow us to easily justify why various characters are gone, as well as how these other important characters (the new players) have been around for a while. In addition, some of the current players want to make new characters.
-There are also some important story elements from our last big adventure that come into play.
-We had been working under the direction of Inquisitor Staven Arcturos (Radical's Handbook), and upon our last return to Port Wander, we found ourselves accused of Heresy for working with that radical, and had to go on the run.
-Prior to that, in an unexpected turn of events, our Arch-Militant let himself get possessed by a Daemon, mutated into a horrific and powerful being, and then freed from the control of the daemon while maintaining the awesome powers (I gave him one shot at rolling a natural 1 on a WP test, and he did it. Yeah, unexpected), and then taking over a second starship we'd acquired and running away.
That last point is what I'd decided I want our next big adventure to be about. 100 years have gone by and our old buddy-turned-daemon has built up a cult following in the Koronus Expanse and a bit into the Calixis Sector, and it's up to us to catch him.
What I need help with is knowing what kind of things should have changed in those hundred years? On a whole, we'll assume the situation throughout the Imperium is generally the same, but I'm wondering what kind of changes would occur in three areas:
1- The Koronus Expanse - How much more should be explored and tamed? Could we only expect a few more planets to be a part of the Imperium now, or should there be dozens?
2- Within the Dynasty - After being branded as Heretics, how could a RT dynasty possibly avoid the Inquisition? Is there a way that they could be back in at least relatively good standing, so that they don't have to run at the first sign of the Imperium? Also, onboard the ship, what should have changed? We'll have a new Rogue Trader. What kind of complications would that turnover of power be accompanied by, and how long would they last?
3- The Daemon's Cult - How would our Daemon friend go about building up a following? How would he avoid being destroyed or at least beaten into submission by a more powerful Daemon? While still human, he held some bitterness towards the Imperium. Would that likely still exist, or would it be replaced by a generally chaotic hate for everything?
Sorry this post was a bit long. I appreciate any suggestions.

I think I like the idea of those maps being warp charts for the uneducated. A navigator would certainly need something with incredible detail, and all sorts of complicated information. However, A map like those on the inside cover of the book would be fitting as a map made by one uneducated, just a rough map of what's going on.